Consumer Candidate Touts Environmental Issues Campaign '86

Environmental activist Heidi Hoover will find a familiar name on the ballot Tuesday. Hers.

Hoover, a 42-year-old East Norton Township, Montgomery County resident, is the Consumer Party's answer to Republican William W. Scranton III and Democrat Robert P. Casey.

The co-founder of AWARE, the environmental group that has been fighting to stop construction of Unit 2 at the Limerick nuclear power plant and the controversial Point Pleasant pump project, says she has never voted before.

On Tuesday, she will, because it will be the first time, she says, that there is a candidate on the ballot she can support. Herself.

Hoover says she is tired of having to choose between candidates whose views on issues important to her resemble "Jack the Ripper or Bluebeard." That is why she says she has never voted. Her conscience would not allow it.

"I am running because I would like to encourage a participatory democracy, because people are very discouraged with the two major parties.

"It is so hard to vote for people who do not represent what you believe in," she says.

Her platform is simple. She vows to close down nuclear plants and wants automobile insurance rates dramatically lowered. She wants teacher salaries raised, but later pay hikes based on merit.

She wants to see more women involved in the political process and believes women have the right to decide if they want to have an abortion or to go through a full-term pregnancy.

She would turn the bureaucracy over to professionals who would make decisions in a non-partisan manner.

Hoover admits she has no chance of winning on Tuesday. Her party's total campaign budget of $10,000 is about one-tenth of one percent of what Scranton and Casey will spend for the campaign. She makes appearances and tries to get on radio shows to present her case to the voters.

"This is a golden opportunity to put my deepest dreams for the environment to the test," Hoover says. "It is really the environmental activism that got me into it.

"I'm not anti-nuclear. I'm frothing at the mouth anti-nuclear. I say that without any question."

Hoover says there is an 85 percent probability of a nuclear plant meltdown in the United States in the next 10 years.

"If that happens in Pennsylvania, you can stop worrying about infrastructure, jobs, health plans for the elderly," Hoover says.

She would replace nuclear plants with coal-fired generating plants, built with the best technology available to reduce emissions that cause acid rain.

"My solution may sound simplistic and Pollyanna. But it is not," she says, contending that utilities have factored out closing their nuclear plants and have found "it is to their advantage."

Hoover says she is also hoping to be a role model for other women interested in politics. She finds it hard to believe there are not qualified Republican and Democratic women ready to serve in high elected offices.

On the two other candidates, Hoover says Scranton "would be okay, but he's part of the political machine." Casey, on the other hand, "is very anti-woman. Dracula would be better than Bob Casey."

She scoffs at any suggestion that she is not qualified. She and her husband own a carpet company they operate out of her home. She attended school in Lower Merion Township and studied classical piano for 12 years before realizing she would never make a living doing it on stage.

"If President Reagan can be a third-rate actor and be governor of California. I, as a dedicated environmentalist, can be elected governor of Pennsylvania."

Hoover's running mate on the ballot is John Brickhouse, a 53-yearold black trade unionist and community activist.